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Yeah but he is also a dick.
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# ? Apr 20, 2021 20:48 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 13:56 |
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I think it can be true both that David is a dick and also that the existing Animorphs are doing a really bad job with him in making him part of the team. In the Animorphs' defense, though, this whole thing pretty much fell in their laps while they're in the middle of preventing the leaders of the most powerful nations in the world from being kidnapped or controlled by the Yeerks. They're also young teens who don't have the training or resources to really help a kid who's just seen his parents abducted by aliens, lost his home and everything important to him, and is being hunted..
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# ? Apr 20, 2021 21:12 |
they have to take him along. he's a flight risk and they've kitted him out with enough morphs for him to escape and operate independently already. they just plain don't trust him, which is actually fair - in retrospect, they shouldn't have trusted themselves in book 1 right after they discovered that tom was a controller and it's genuinely a miracle (i.e. ellimist bullshit) that none of the original kids are reckless enough to expose their whole operation. it might be possible to integrate david eventually but right now they have to treat him as a conscript. it sucks and it's not something any kid thrust into this situation would like or even understand, but they're not making all the wrong plays here - just some of the wrong plays.
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# ? Apr 20, 2021 21:59 |
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Yeah I remember David being a big danger but like wow, they are super poo poo to him. They didn't need to take him along for this mission? He's got 0 experience and this is one of their biggest, most intense missions yet? But, it all loops back to the problem of "these are 13 year old child soldiers fighting a secret guerilla war"
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# ? Apr 20, 2021 22:50 |
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Jazerus posted:they have to take him along. he's a flight risk and they've kitted him out with enough morphs for him to escape and operate independently already. they just plain don't trust him, which is actually fair - in retrospect, they shouldn't have trusted themselves in book 1 right after they discovered that tom was a controller and it's genuinely a miracle (i.e. ellimist bullshit) that none of the original kids are reckless enough to expose their whole operation. it might be possible to integrate david eventually but right now they have to treat him as a conscript. it sucks and it's not something any kid thrust into this situation would like or even understand, but they're not making all the wrong plays here - just some of the wrong plays. Yup, I'm on this side. They could have left him for infestation (though I think that would have been an unsafe play), but instead they gave him an opportunity to avoid it, to remain free, and they put themselves all at tremendous risk so he could have that chance. There's no way that risk doesn't weigh on their minds; if David fucks up and gets caught, if David blows a mission in a way that reveals their identities, if David turns them in to Visser Three to try to trade them for his parents, then the same thing that happened to his family happens to them and their families. The fates of everyone they love are in the hands of a kid who's already proven to be the dickhead everyone dreaded getting paired with in science lab. It's not a fair situation for David, but it'd be another, possibly catastrophically, dumb move in this little series of dumb moves for them to completely trust David immediately.
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 03:07 |
disaster pastor posted:The fates of everyone they love are in the hands of a kid who's already proven to be the dickhead everyone dreaded getting paired with in science lab. now this, this i don't agree with. it's like marco says himself: the extent of what they know about him is that he has a cat named megadeth and a snake named spawn. and his dad is NSA. the crow thing is a bit sus but 13 year old boys kill animals for reasons much less solid than, say, practicing to use a morph in battle while also working out frustration about his entire life being destroyed. which is, as far as we know, what david was doing. do they think tobias hasn't killed birds he considers a bit shifty, for no reason other than to clear his territory? because if so they really haven't been paying enough attention to mr. strong-opinions-about-birds yes, david was kind of a dick to marco at the beginning. so what? marco isn't exactly mr. smooth himself.
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 03:41 |
It's a cobra, mind, not a snake. I'd find that a bit off-putting as well, tbh.
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 03:47 |
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I don't think they could have left David out of the mission without causing more problems. Putting aside the fact that this was supposed to just be a recon mission, leaving David behind would only serve to further drive a wedge between him and the other Animorphs. As much as they could explain that he doesn't have enough experience to participate in such an important mission, he's just a 13 year old kid, he's going to resent being left out by the group. Things are shaky enough between him and the others as is, piling more stuff on him is just going to make things much worse.
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 04:01 |
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Animorphs-Book 20-The Discovery, Chapter 25quote:He opened his mostly human mouth to scream. It wasn’t much of a scream because his lungs were almost gone. But it was enough. It kills bugs dead. Also, good job Cassie back there with the manipulation, honestly. Chapter 26 quote:<The light!> Ax yelled. <Go to the light!> Visser Three is paranoid, sure, but from his perspective, it does make sense. You never know if an animal you see is just an animal or really one of the Animorphs, so you sort of have to assume they all are. quote:<Acquire?> I echoed in my mind. <Huh?> So even though other books have referenced other books before, this is the first one to be explictly a two parter. Tomorrow, Jake will tell us how they got out of this when we read book 21, "The Threat".
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 04:42 |
Cassie could be an absolute monster if she didn't have a good heart.
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 04:57 |
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:Cassie could be an absolute monster if she didn't have a good heart. She totally is one, she just feels bad about it.
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 05:14 |
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Visser Three is the only one who's paranoid enough about random animals potentially being enemies. It's been 20 books, and all the others Yeerks are still like "Oh, flies. Anyway,"
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 05:25 |
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Shwoo posted:Visser Three is the only one who's paranoid enough about random animals potentially being enemies. It's been 20 books, and all the others Yeerks are still like "Oh, flies. Anyway," "That's weird. You usually don't see a tiger, a wolf. a gorilla, a bear, a hawk, and an Andalite hang out like that. Anyway, so back to the secret plan that Visser Three has....."
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 05:34 |
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It's rad that the Yeerks, masters of subterfuge and shape-stealing, are pretty clueless when it comes to guerrilla gorillas.
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 07:54 |
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Epicurius posted:Visser Three is paranoid, sure, but from his perspective, it does make sense. You never know if an animal you see is just an animal or really one of the Animorphs, so you sort of have to assume they all are. True in general but... probably a safe bet when you hear one of them screaming like a human first. Anyway I've been on this dying comedy forum for more than ten years but this is the first time I'm ever going to figure out how to access it on my phone because I'm flying to Sydney for the long weekend and don't want to miss any of this, so congrats and thank you and making a thread which is Must-See-TV!
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 09:49 |
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How is morphing the president supposed to work out at all? I don't think Visser 3 wants to spend 24 hours a day being the president and people are going to notice the "president" doing things the actual president didn't do
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 13:10 |
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Piell posted:How is morphing the president supposed to work out at all? I don't think Visser 3 wants to spend 24 hours a day being the president and people are going to notice the "president" doing things the actual president didn't do Yeah it doesn't make any sense, while acquiring could be useful V3 should at least infest the President with someone loyal to him to run things the other 90% of the time.
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 13:20 |
ANOTHER SCORCHER posted:Yeah it doesn't make any sense, while acquiring could be useful V3 should at least infest the President with someone loyal to him to run things the other 90% of the time. Who is this mysterious person? No one is actually loyal to V3 because he treats everyone like poo poo.
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 16:48 |
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I don't think a yeerk president can actually do much more to defend himself against v3 than either the real president or any yeerk under his command. What's he going to do, tell the world about the yeerk invasion? Not go back to the yeerk pool to feed so v3 can't kill him?
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 17:00 |
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Who is this mysterious person? No one is actually loyal to V3 because he treats everyone like poo poo. I mean, there's the eventual Visser Two, but that's because Visser Two is a goddamn lunatic toady out of Dr. Strangelove.
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 17:20 |
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Fair enough, I guess again we encounter the problem between V3's leadership style and the conditions under which he's working. V1's slow cultural spread plan has established the pool on the American West Coast, which means V3 can't make someone as powerful as the President into a Controller due to his inability to trust his underlings, which is exacerbated by his sociopathic management style.
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 18:07 |
ANOTHER SCORCHER posted:Fair enough, I guess again we encounter the problem between V3's leadership style and the conditions under which he's working. V1's slow cultural spread plan has established the pool on the American West Coast, which means V3 can't make someone as powerful as the President into a Controller due to his inability to trust his underlings, which is exacerbated by his sociopathic management style. while it's a tertiary source of information at best, KA & michael say in the letter-responses that were posted a few days ago that visser 3 does have some vissers under him that he trusts to work independently in other nations. since the president isn't already a controller, but one of the other heads of state is, i suspect that that leader (who is totally tony blair imo) is infested by a trusted visser. esplin might be loving crazy, but he does seem to have a few friends that he dragged with him up the yeerk hierarchy after he infested alloran. visser 3's plan here is probably to be the president full-time; he just doesn't want to give up alloran's body, for obvious reasons. if he succeeds, then probably he would appoint a visser to oversee the california pool and deal with the andalite bandits while he fucks off to be bill clinton Jazerus fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Apr 21, 2021 |
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 18:20 |
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Jazerus posted:while it's a tertiary source of information at best, KA & michael say in the letter-responses that were posted a few days ago that visser 3 does have some vissers under him that he trusts to work independently in other nations. since the president isn't already a controller, but one of the other heads of state is, i suspect that that leader (who is totally tony blair imo) is infested by a trusted visser. esplin might be loving crazy, but he does seem to have a few friends that he dragged with him up the yeerk hierarchy after he infested alloran. Can't micromanage an invasion of a planet that closely, I guess. Even if everybody hates him as a boss, everybody's got work to do, even if you're the Visser assigned to take over Antarctica. "We've finished infiltrating the research stations. What now, Visser Twelve?" "Umm....well, this paper says McMurdo is looking for pollen in ice cores to study paleoclimatology and Escudero is studying bacteria along the coastal ice shelf, so I guess we keep on doing that?" "Visser, sometimes it feels like Visser Three isn't paying any attention to our part of the conquest at all....like we're an afterthought." "I know, Subvisser Fifty-Six. I know. I'm sure he just has other things on his mind. Now, back to those cores!"
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 19:38 |
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Epicurius posted:Can't micromanage an invasion of a planet that closely, I guess. Even if everybody hates him as a boss, everybody's got work to do, even if you're the Visser assigned to take over Antarctica. "Do it now or you'll spend the next six months evaluating the suitability of penguins as hosts."
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# ? Apr 21, 2021 20:11 |
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I don't envy the hypothetical president-infesting yeerk who has to explain why every third day on his calendar needs to be wiped forthwith. Also, you secret service guys can have a day off, you've earned it, plz go now. V3's plan actually makes sense for once! Cythereal posted:"Do it now or you'll spend the next six months evaluating the suitability of penguins as hosts." Pros: ever so stylish; at home in Pools Cons: total waste of colour vision capabilities
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# ? Apr 22, 2021 01:02 |
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Tree Bucket posted:I don't envy the hypothetical president-infesting yeerk who has to explain why every third day on his calendar needs to be wiped forthwith. Also, you secret service guys can have a day off, you've earned it, plz go now. On the other hand, every meeting or event that the president goes to need to take a break every 2 hours or less for him to demorph and remorph.
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# ? Apr 22, 2021 03:01 |
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lapis legit posted:On the other hand, every meeting or event that the president goes to need to take a break every 2 hours or less for him to demorph and remorph. Recent events have shown us that Visser 3 could totally get away with just posting schedules that literally say, "The President will make many calls and have many meetings" and then tweet out "Working Hard! Thank You!" and he'd probably be free for most of the day.
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# ? Apr 22, 2021 03:15 |
To be completely fair... I don't think it would be a long-term thing. As the group rightly point out, once they have the people at the top, that's the ball game. It would be very easy to put large-scale infestation programs in place once you have the executive. And then, it's pretty much too late to stop it.
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# ? Apr 22, 2021 03:16 |
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:To be completely fair... I don't think it would be a long-term thing. As the group rightly point out, once they have the people at the top, that's the ball game. It would be very easy to put large-scale infestation programs in place once you have the executive. And then, it's pretty much too late to stop it. "All right, Marines, as per a new executive order, we have added another step to basic training! You will take the slug from this pool! You will hold it up to your ear! You will wait! Do you understand me, maggots?" Voice from the pool: "We understand you. Get on with it!"
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# ? Apr 22, 2021 03:56 |
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Animorphs Book 21-The Threat, Chapter 1quote:My name is Jake. True, though. Chapter 2 quote:We demorphed in the dunes. Five of us had no problems. One of us had a serious problem. I'm getting a feeling of impending doom here. Also, Jake's still doing the whole "fearless leader" thing.
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# ? Apr 22, 2021 04:11 |
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This and the internet book were the first two Animorphs books I ever read, picking both up at the same time when I was in elementary school. It's kinda weird in retrospect to think that I branched out from the weird internet one and the middle of a trilogy to ravenously devouring the entire series.
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# ? Apr 22, 2021 04:29 |
Jake, when you have doubts about someone like this, learn to trust them.
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# ? Apr 22, 2021 04:57 |
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I've actually never read this one. I read the first and last David book, but not the middle one. I'm curious exactly how things turn out the way they do.
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# ? Apr 22, 2021 05:36 |
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gourdcaptain posted:This and the internet book were the first two Animorphs books I ever read, picking both up at the same time when I was in elementary school. That's interesting; I always thought the standard "hi I'm Jake we're the animorphs yeerks are a thing" intros were pretty pointless this far into the series. But it looks like people were picking them up that far in! Must've been insanely confusing.
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# ? Apr 22, 2021 05:43 |
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Kids will just pick up whatever, whenever, I think. Especially if you're just relying on whatever happens to be available at the library or the Scholastic book fair. Anyway, this chapter does a real good job of making David say stuff which isn't wrong or incorrect, per se, but is just... off. quote:I started to say something, then stopped myself. Compare and contrast to Marco irritably saying something provocative in the last book (about ten minutes ago) even though he knows it's a bad idea. This book is the middle act of a plot-driven trilogy, but it's also a really strong Jake book.
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# ? Apr 22, 2021 09:38 |
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The whole "It's not illegal of your are a bird" is really going to come back to bite them in the rear end. Tobias/David are also in an interesting contrast with each other, both are kids who lost the normality of a stable home environment thanks to the Animorphs, but they react very differently.
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# ? Apr 22, 2021 11:57 |
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Tree Bucket posted:That's interesting; I always thought the standard "hi I'm Jake we're the animorphs yeerks are a thing" intros were pretty pointless this far into the series. But it looks like people were picking them up that far in! I picked up a ton of books mid-series and then either rolled with it or went back later. It was usually fine. Mostly, it was because I was stuck with whatever the library had at the time. I kept it up with TV too. If anything, I thought starting the BSG remake with "33" and missing the miniseries actually kind of helped pique my interest.
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# ? Apr 22, 2021 12:37 |
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I thought it was a little weird that they would have a crisis over shoplifting when it was necessary and not just for fun.
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# ? Apr 22, 2021 15:40 |
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bobjr posted:I thought it was a little weird that they would have a crisis over shoplifting when it was necessary and not just for fun. They're good boys and girls.
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# ? Apr 22, 2021 16:21 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 13:56 |
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e X posted:Tobias/David are also in an interesting contrast with each other, both are kids who lost the normality of a stable home environment thanks to the Animorphs, but they react very differently. Tobias? I think you could make a pretty good case he has a more "normal" and stable (bird) life now than he ever did as a human
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# ? Apr 22, 2021 16:28 |